


we found our roads

by nightdescending



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-29 09:39:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1003845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightdescending/pseuds/nightdescending
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael and Gavin get drunk, Gavin is a flirt, and everyone is dumb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we found our roads

**Author's Note:**

> also on [tumblr](http://jpeghero.tumblr.com/post/61903144787)

Gavin won’t remember the day he meets Michael. It’s a random day of a random week and all he will have is a vague awareness of the season.

They do meet, though, and it’s not supposed to be anything beyond a handshake and an exchange of “Hey, man, how are you?” It’s supposed to be simple.

But.

Gavin wraps his fingers around Michael’s hand and he feels his heart skip a beat as Michael smiles at him, and he has  _dimples_ , and Gavin feels a little like he’s weightless for the rest of the day.

—

He will remember the first time he watches videos from Michael’s channel. He will remember how frustrated and angry Michael gets, and how Michael’s voice rises in pitch when he screams sometimes and the way he sounds when he gets truly upset as opposed to when he acts that way for drama.

MIchael’s voice will stay in his brain. Gavin will remember the first time after that when his internal monologue is so frustrated, when he feels like he could just throw his controller across the room, and Michael’s “FUCK” echoes in his head.

—

Michael doesn’t understand Gavin. Gavin smiles at him when they first meet, and he makes this obnoxious dopey face when they do Let’s Plays together, and he laughs at the most mundane things.

Gavin grins at all his stupid jokes. He instinctively understands, somehow, when Michael is genuinely annoyed. He usually turns away when Michael is actually upset, and he seems to think this hides how amused he is at Michael’s frustrated yelling. He doesn’t seem to understand that his shaking shoulders give him away.

And Gavin is usually so open with his feelings, with how he feels about coworkers and friends he has outside of work, but then one day Michael asks him whether he has a girl he likes, and Gavin clams up so suddenly that Michael isn’t quite sure what to do.

He cracks an awkward joke. Gavin smiles, but it’s not quite right. Michael goes over what he’s said, tries to find what could have upset Gavin, but he comes up blank.

He ignores it. The next day they film a Let’s Play together and Gavin is back to his usual self, smile as bright as always, laugh that makes Michael laugh too even when it’s not particularly funny, and Michael doesn’t think about it.

—

Every once in a while, Gavin gets homesick. It doesn’t happen very often anymore, but when it does, it hits him hard, as if he were missing a piece of himself instead of just a place. He feels slightly empty, like he isn’t complete.

He finds himself thinking about home one day a few weeks after he meets Michael, and everything crashes in on him. Thousands of miles, years of distance. He suddenly just feels off.

He is distantly aware that he has possibly been moping around the office for a couple days. He tries to act like he’s fine, he’s just like he always has been, and for the most part, people are convinced. Gavin is fine, and everything is fine, and he doesn’t let anything interfere with his work. It is record, edit, record, edit, record, edit, and it’s a familiar pattern. It’s fine.

And then he glances over at Michael while they’re recording their latest video together. Michael happens to glance at him out of the corner of his eye at the same time and their eyes meet, and Gavin knows he is caught. Fucking of  _course_  Michael has guessed that he’s upset.

They film a Minecraft Let’s Play and Gavin sets fire to everything he can. Michael acts as though he’s furious with Gavin. And if the only thing that eventually makes Gavin relax back into their normal rhythm is Michael’s swearing and him laughing at it, well, that’s no one’s business but his own.

—

They need to get drunk. Michael decides this and it is absolute truth. Gavin needs a distraction, and Michael just needs to feel stupid and light and like he doesn’t have to think about things anymore. Gavin agrees readily enough, and before Michael knows it they find themselves eight shots deep at some dive bar close to the office.

Michael’s head is swimming, his vision only focusing through the haze of whiskey when he tries really,  _really_  hard. He is aware on some level that Gavin is close to him, but most of his brain is focused on how he feels like he’s floating and he’s not quite sure which way is up anymore. Through the haze he notes that Gavin’s accent is thicker when he’s drunk, and Michael resolves to keep the shots coming. Gavin’s accent is funny, so it’s important that Michael makes sure it’s as pronounced as possible. It’s only logical. Obviously.

Gavin drags Michael to the bar with him when he wants another round. Michael rolls his eyes when Gavin’s fingers wrap tightly around his wrist, and his bitching about being dragged along like a security blanket is really only for show. He hopes Gavin doesn’t know this, but the way Gavin is smirking at him makes him petulant and frustrated.

Gavin orders Irish car bombs for both of them. Michael is drunk enough to think this is an excellent idea. They down their drinks, and Michael feels like he has managed an expression that is sufficiently stoic despite the burn in his throat, but then Gavin  _laughs_ , the asshole.

"Your  _face_ ,” Gavin wheezes between laughs, and Michael figures out that he maybe wasn’t quite as impassive as he thought he was. He glares. Gavin keeps laughing. He  _glares_. Gavin turns away and hides his laughter behind his hand, and Michael can accept that, even if he can’t stop the occasional giggle that escapes between Gavin’s fingers. 

Gavin orders a shot of Jack for both of them and Michael thinks vaguely that he is so fucking glad that this is on Gavin’s tab as he throws the shot back. He registers the burn down his throat, but then his vision is obscured entirely by Gavin.

"Your face gets all red when you do shots, did you know that?" Gavin says lightly, and he’s leaning in so close, too close, and Michael feels his face burn. Gavin leans back and giggles again and Michael is annoyed. He’s so annoyed. Angry. That’s what he is. He opens his mouth to tell Gavin to go fuck himself when—

"It’s cute, y’know."

Michael stops. His thoughts grind to a halt and  _did he just—did Gavin just call him cute?_ Michael’s eyes narrow.

"I’m gonna punch you so hard as soon as I can see straight," Michael hisses, and fucking  _again_ , Gavin laughs, but Michael is serious. He’s so serious. Probably definitely the most serious he’s ever been.

"I swear to fuck, I’ll—" Michael starts, but Gavin, the  _fucking nerve of him_ , Gavin just walks away.

Michael stands, open mouthed, at the bar as he watches Gavin wander away only to fit himself in seamlessly between the rest of their group. He is entirely annoyed, and he definitely does not spend the rest of the evening brooding, no matter what Gavin says. Gavin can fuck off, and so can all the whiskey that makes Michael’s brain slow and sleepy.

(But especially Gavin.)

—

Gavin flirts when he’s drunk.

Michael realizes this during the first few times they get drunk together. Gavin hovers closer to people than usual, touches them more, talks almost entirely in innuendo. Michael rolls his eyes at Gavin, and he goes about his life, and he ignores the tightening in his stomach when Gavin directs his gaze in Michael’s direction.

Gavin, despite what he may claim, is a flirt. Gavin is drunk. Therefore Gavin flirts more than usual when he drinks. It’s logical. It makes sense.

Michael tries not to think about it, and sometimes he’s even successful.

—

It takes a few weeks for Michael to realize that maybe he wasn’t entirely correct in his initial observation. Gavin flirts when he’s drunk, that’s for sure, but maybe he isn’t quite as indiscriminate as Michael thought he was.

It’s Friday night. They filmed a successful Let’s Play today, and the mood is generally high within the Achievement Hunter office. Michael feels good, and by the way Gavin is practically bouncing on his heels he can only assume Gavin does too. His mood is contagious and allows Gavin to drag Barbara and Lindsay into coming out with them tonight.

Michael doesn’t mind, really, but some part of him feels a little off with people there between them. He sits between Lindsay and the wall and watches Gavin across the table, and everything seems normal. But.

Gavin declares that he wants more drinks. Michael agrees wholeheartedly. He wants to go with Gavin, but then remembers that he can’t do that without making Lindsay move too. So Michael stays in the booth they’ve occupied, and if his eyes move to follow Gavin, well, that’s only natural. More often than not, when they go out, it’s just the two of them. Michael has to keep an eye on him. This is how it works. It’s fine.

Gavin walks up to the bar and Michael watches as a girl comes up to him. His eyes definitely do _not_  narrow at the way she easily leans toward Gavin. He can’t hear what she’s saying over the music and the distance between them, but he images it’s some comment about Gavin’s accent, about how he’s  _cute_ , and then some painfully obvious small talk designed to get Gavin into her bed. Michael watches the way Gavin’s shoulders tense even with the alcohol in his system, and something tight and angry is swelling up in Michael’s chest and he wants this girl to  _leave_ , and he’s maybe glaring at her a tiny bit but it’s definitely not obvious, not at all, and—

"Michael," Lindsay says, and her voice is amused. He turns to look at her, realizes she’s been watching him, and she is barely able to suppress her laughter. "You look like you just ate something rotten," she says, and she pointedly glances toward Gavin before fixing her gaze back on Michael. Barbara giggles across from them and refuses to look at anything other than the table in front of her.

Michael scoff-laughs, and he knows it sounds forced but, honestly,  _fuck_  this. He doesn’t want to think about why he’s suddenly so deeply annoyed, why he wants to punch a girl for the first time in his life. He goes back to his drink, and eventually Gavin comes back, and if the look Michael gives him isn’t quite the same as usual, Gavin doesn’t comment on it.

—

Gavin isn’t stupid. He knows how he tends to act when he’s drunk. He knows that his mouth goes off without his permission and his hands always want to be in contact with someone.

And yet, lately, when people occasionally come up to him and obviously want something from him, he declines.

Instead he glances across the room and finds eyes already locked onto him, and he feels his cheeks darken and his stomach drop and what the  _hell_ , since when is he so this stupid about all of this?

The girl in front of him at the bar is beautiful, all soft curves and lovely, hooded eyes, and the whiskey in his veins makes him want to say yes, to take her home and forget, but—

"Sorry, I’m with someone."

The words are out of his mouth before he realizes it, and he glances over at Michael without meaning to. He blushes. It’s fucking embarrassing. The girl smiles knowingly and he wants to deny it, but.

But.

—

Michael starts paying attention, watching the way Gavin interacts with people when he’s drunk. Gavin is loud and obnoxious, yes, but he’s different from what Michael originally thought.

Gavin’s touches always seem to linger a few seconds too long when his hand brushes against Michael’s. Gavin never once accepts on the occasions when someone attempts to pick him up. Gavin looks at Michael in a way that makes Michael’s stomach flip, and that look seems to be entirely reserved for Michael. Michael tries for a whole three weeks to catch Gavin directing it at someone else, and he fails every time.

Occasionally, Michael is drunk enough to allow that absurd feeling that swells in his chest when Gavin is paying too much attention to someone other than him—jealousy, he realizes one night after far too many shots and he is suddenly absolutely fucking determined to get drunk enough to forget this whole night—to take over. On these nights, he saunters up to Gavin and wraps his fingers around Gavin’s and carefully ignores the voice of reason in his head that tries to ask him why the _fuck_  he feels compelled to do this.

Michael considers the way Gavin’s cheeks darken slightly when he does this. He considers the way his heart feels lighter whenever Gavin’s fingers tighten around his and—

_Oh._

—

One night, they end up at Michael’s apartment. Gavin’s head is swimming. His vision is threatening to start doubling and he has to consciously order his legs not to stumble when he walks from the kitchen where the booze is kept back toward the living room where he left Michael and their other companions for the night.

He makes it back though, and the only indication of how truly fucking wasted he is is the way his words slur together when he addresses Michael.

He lets himself fall down into the couch cushions, taking up the space next to Michael as if it was meant for him. Lindsay has settled herself in Michael’s armchair, and Michael is laughing at something she said, and Gavin isn’t quite as okay with that as he should be. He leans against Michael’s side, lets his head fall heavily against Michael’s shoulder. He sees Lindsay’s smirk without quite understanding what it means.

He feels content here, leaning on Michael, and when Michael absently reaches and slides his hand around Gavin’s waist, Gavin can’t complain at all.

"Michael," Gavin huffs, leaning in closer to him and practically breathing the word into his ear.

Michael pulls back slightly to look at him and replies, “Gavin.” He has this soft smile on his face and his eyes are heavy, syllables sounding heavy and thick on his tongue.

Gavin wants to make something of this expression, and he has every intention of saying something back, but instead his eyes fall closed at the way Michael’s voice vibrates through him. He stays where he is. This is enough, the way Michael’s mouth quirks up at the corner and his eyes find Gavin’s and stay there for a second too long.

It’s good. Gavin feels good. He feels slow. Sleepy.

The next day, he will vaguely remember hands tugging off his shoes as they put him to bed. His memories will be foggy and dream-like, but he will be certain that the voice that said “Go to sleep, idiot” was Michael’s.

—

Gavin wakes up to late-morning sunlight filtering in through the blinds and falling across his face. It’s  _bright_ , and his head hurts like someone has been drilling into his temples, and honestly, fuck this.

He lies there for a few seconds before realizing that this isn’t his bed. He sits up rather suddenly, and the pain in his head increases by a factor of approximately four billion. He groans quietly, massaging his temples with his fingertips, but he manages to look around the room. Michael’s guest room, apparently. He closes his eyes again and falls back against the pillows, letting his drowsy senses take over and pull him into half-sleep for an hour or so.

Eventually he wakes up for real and convinces himself to get out of bed and make his way toward wherever Michael is.

It isn’t difficult to find him. Gavin exits the bedroom and heads toward the sound of muffled swearing. Michael is fully awake, fully dressed, and fully immersed in a game that he apparently finds difficult, based on the amount of swearing Gavin is hearing. The fact that it didn’t wake him up means Michael’s been holding back, and Gavin’s feels lighter suddenly and it’s  _stupid_.

He enters the living room and then stops, doesn’t say anything as Michael continues to swear quietly at his TV, but then.

"What are you doing? Come here, idiot," Michael says, and Gavin briefly considers the situation. He thinks about how Michael’s couch can fit three people, but things feel different.

Gavin feels like every muscle is pulled too tight, but he sits next to Michael anyway, and he feels himself relax almost immediately. His leans his left side against Michael’s right, and his heart definitely does not stutter for a second when Michael unconsciously leans back against him, thank you very much.

Gavin feels content. This is easy, sitting here next to Michael and listening to his muttering. The ache in his head has dulled a bit, and he can’t really think of anything he’d like to change about the moment.

—

Michael realizes at some point that the breaths beside him are too quiet, too shallow and even, and he looks over at Gavin to only to find him with eyes closed and snoring ever so slightly onto Michael’s shoulder. His chest feels tight and he’s tired, so tired, of feeling that over and over again.

He pokes at Gavin’s shoulder until he wakes up, and Michael says,  “Gavin.”

Gavin stirs against his shoulder and directs sleepy eyes at him and Michael swears his breath stops for half a second, and—

Gavin is awake and not, and Michael can’t stand it, can’t stand the way Gavin is pressed against his side, and his mind urges him to do something utterly ridiculous, and for once, Michael doesn’t fight it.

He leans forward a few centimeters and presses his lips to Gavin’s. His eyes slip closed and Gavin is so still, so quiet, that Michael almost pulls back, but then Gavin’s hand reaches up to tangle in his hair and Gavin is kissing him back, god, he’s, fuck, Gavin is—

Gavin’s lips are moving against his and Michael stupidly didn’t expect it and he feels lost for a tiny fraction of a second, until his mind slams back into the present and he is, well.  _Lost_.

Michael registers that Gavin tastes like last night’s drinks, like the morning after something stupid, and he doesn’t have time to wonder what Gavin tastes like under other circumstances before Gavin has sucked Michael’s bottom lip in between his teeth, and Michael loses all ability to process rational thought.

They’re kissing, and Michael absently thinks it should feel weird and awkward, but it doesn’t. It feels natural. It feels like it should’ve happened months ago.

Gavin pulls back first. Michael’s eyes open slowly, cautiously, but what he finds is overwhelming. Gavin is staring at him as if he can’t quite believe that Michael is real, and it makes Michael’s stomach clench tightly.

Michael’s hand slides up to cup Gavin’s face, his touch light, and Gavin leans into it. Michael feels weightless, buoyant.

And then, of course, Gavin, master of seduction, says, “Hot.” 

Michael rolls his eyes as obviously as possible, but he can’t stop the laugh that forces its way out of him. “Yeah,” he says, and maybe he leans his forehead against Gavin’s for half a second, but it’s obviously an exasperated gesture. Clearly.

Michael sits back again, resumes playing his game, and if Gavin is still leaning against his shoulder with a soft smile making its way across his lips, and if he can’t quite stop his own smile from spreading, if he sometimes reaches out to put his hand on Gavin’s knee when cutscenes make it so that he doesn’t really need to pay attention for a few seconds, well.

It’s fine. It’s only natural.


End file.
